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DA to file murder charge following death of Boulder assault victim

Roland 'Donnie' Dequina died of injuries sustained in attack at 27th and Baseline

By Mitchell Byars

Staff Writer

Posted:
08/01/2017 09:53:16 AM MDT

Updated:
08/01/2017 11:03:00 PM MDT

A man who identified himself as Lex Luther — a friend of Roland Dequina, also know as Donnie — sits in the background wearing a Grateful Dead shirt to honor his late friend, who was a huge Dead fan. Dequina's friends have created a memorial at the spot where he was beaten near Baseline Road and 28th Way in Boulder on July 24. Dequina died from his injuries over the weekend. (Cliff Grassmick / Staff Photographer)

Roland Dequina (Boulder County Sheriff's Office / Courtesy photo)

The homeless man who police say was stabbed and beaten with a stick near 27th Way and Baseline Road in Boulder last week has died from his injuries — and the suspect in the attack now will face a murder charge.

James Craig Dobson appears in court at the Boulder County Jail on Wednesday. (Paul Aiken / Staff Photographer)

James Craig Dobson, the 56-year-old suspect in the attack of both Dequina and another man, Jeffrey Cross, 50, was arrested last week on suspicion of attempted murder and assault.

But Catherine Olguin, spokeswoman for the Boulder County District Attorney's Office, said Tuesday that Dobson now will be charged with second-degree murder in light of Dequina's death. Prosecutors also will file second- and third-degree assault charges.

Dobson made his first appearance in court on July 26, but with Dequina still hospitalized at the time with grave injuries, prosecutors sought a longer delay between that appearance and the filing of charges.

"We asked for some additional time to file because of the complex nature of this case," District Attorney Stan Garnett said.

Dobson is currently being held on $100,000 bond.

Two overnight assaults

According to an arrest affidavit, Dobson, Dequina, and Jeffrey Cross, 50 — all three of whom are homeless -— had been hanging out and drinking overnight July 24, and had been arguing throughout the night.

At 10 p.m. July 24, an officer responded to the area and reported finding Dobson sitting near an intoxicated Cross, who was lying on the ground in the fetal position and bleeding. When taken to the hospital, Cross said he got the injuries when he "took a digger," and Dobson also denied that anything happened.

Four hours later, three people bicycling through the same area found Dequina lying in a pool of blood and called 911. First responders were unable to find a pulse and began performing CPR. Doctors later said Dequina had a skull fracture, brain bleed, lacerations on his face and bruising and abrasions on his chest and arms.

According to the affidavit, police located Dobson at 9:20 a.m. July 25 and took him in for questioning. He admitted he was with Dequina and told police that Dequina threatened him with a stick, so he punched him in the face and then picked up his own stick to defend himself.

Investigators said Dobson's clothes had blood stains on them and he also had what appeared to be a splinter in his left hand.

Police at the scene recovered a branch that was 12 to 18 inches long and appeared to have been broken off a tree. Investigators said the sharp end of the branch had blood on it and was consistent with Dequina's injuries.

Dobson's criminal history includes arrests for obstructing a police officer, criminal mischief, trespassing, theft and burglary.

A man who identified himself as Lex Luther sat near the memorial, and said he knew Dequina from his days as "Boston Donnie."

Roland Dequina, center, sits with friends at Buena Vista Park off Haight Street in San Francisco in 2012. Dequina died over the weekend, nearly a week after being beaten in Boulder. (Brant Ward / San Francisco Chronicle)

"He was a really good friend of mine," Luther said. "He never been nothing but good to me."

Luther said Dequina struggled with alcoholism, something his girlfriend also told police in the arrest affidavit. Dequina's arrest record in Boulder spans from 1998 to three arrests since 2013 for aggravated robbery, menacing, assault and theft.

"He had ups and downs," Luther said.

Dequina was prominently featured in a 2012 article by the San Francisco Chronicle about that city's then-new "sit/lie" law, a measure aimed at panhandlers that prohibits sitting or lying on public sidewalks between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m.

In the first year of enforcement, Dequina had been cited 25 times under the sit/lie law — putting him No. 3 on San Francisco's citywide ranking of people ticketed under that ordinance. He had ignored every citation, each of which carried penalties of up to $500 in fines and 30 days in jail.

According to the Chronicle, Dequina — who left Massachusetts when he was young and had drifted between Colorado, Oregon and California — had "lived on the Haight's sidewalks since 1997 and is probably its best-known alcoholic."

The article described him as one of "the sort of rangy, tie-dyed old-hippie types visitors expect to see along this hippie-est of streets, and they draw smiles as they greet strollers with high-fives and peace signs."

According to the piece, Dequina sported a tattoo with the Grateful Dead lyric "Until My Dying Day."

"An older Deadhead once said when I was a young man, 'We come from dysfunctional families, and now we're in a more functional family," Dequina told the Chronicle. "That just about says it."

Janice Carroll, Dequina's grandmother, told the newspaper that he was abandoned by his mother at age 5, and that he'd had little contact with his father.

"I stayed home and raised five children, taking in Roland after my daughter disappeared and never came back, and he was a good kid," Carroll said from Massachusetts. "But Roland — he likes to be fancy-free.

"Roland seemed happy here, but then he went out West and things changed," Carroll added. "It's not an uncommon story, is it?"

'He didn't deserve that'

Dequina told the San Francisco Chronicle that his drink of choice was Four Loko, and Baseline Liquor is one of the few places to still sell the alcoholic beverage in Boulder. Baseline Liquor's Keegan Horstman said Dequina was a regular, along with Cross and Dobson.

Horstman said he knew Dequina the least of the three, and that he was "not very talkative." Horstman said Cross was much friendlier, and that he would engage in small talk with him.

Horstman said Dobson, on the other hand, could be aggressive and combative in the store.

"I've had to kick him out multiple times," Horstman said.

The area near 27th Way and Baseline Road is known as a location where panhandlers and the homeless congregate, and Luther said that, as a result, fights are common. But he said his friend did not need to die.

"We have fights out here all the time," Luther said. "But with a stick? And you beat him to death? He didn't deserve that."

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